How common are seromas at spay incision site?

blackoutcat

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My 9 year old came home on the 24th from her spay surgery. I got her at 5 years old from a lady who decided to not spay and after 4 years of being my big baby I finally could afford the elevated costs of a mature surgery. You better believe I palpitated her nipples and weighed her on the weekly for four years being the paranoid cat mom I am. That said I'm very happy and had some awesome vets and techs to take care of her. They say everything went really well and she was a model patient for not only her age but cats in general. Her bloodwork came back all normal except for her White Blood cell count which is considered low but vet explained it may just be her normal numbers, the Neutrophils also were considered low but again might just be her normal, and glucose came back high but only in amounts suggesting stress (I'd be stressed out too with strange people sticking needles into my neck!) Since she's never had bloodwork before we don't have a baseline to compare too but I'm not terribly worried about that as there are usually other signs in the blood to indicate illness associated with those counts. She was also reportedly active within minutes of the isoflurane being shut off and only had to have her fluid line removed because she nearly got it tangled up in the incubator. 

What's getting to me is the half ping pong ball sized lump under her incision site. She was pretty doped up on pain medications when she came home so she barely even looked at the site and was fine without a deterrent. After the drugs wore off though it must have been something awful itchy/annoying because she went after it. The E-collar hasn't come off since and I'm checking the incision site daily for changes. Late yesterday I gave a final check before bed and what appears to be a seroma has formed as well as thick yellowy flakes on her skin all around the shaved area. Nothing is coming out of the sutured area, it doesn't smell, nor does it look infected so I'm pretty positive it's not an abscess. I'm not an expert though and it's still something I can't find much useful information on via google. I'm calling the vet first thing when they're open at 9 but for now does anyone have insight into the matter? Especially the flakes! They're not anything like dandruff, more like what happens when you let liquid white glue dry on skin but thicker. 

For reference I did volunteer work in a veterinary practice as part of my high school co-op program so I'm familiar with vet speak (and what I don't know I research!) However I only worked around the operation room I had next to no experiences with cases of seromas or haemotomas or any other recovery related complications.
 

red top rescue

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Would be interested to see what the vet says about this.  It could be as simple as an allergic reaction of the skin to the antiseptic that was used prepping her for surgery.  If she has had a cone on, the poor thing has not been able to clean herself, so the flakes she would have washed off are still there, as is the irritant.  As for the lump under the surgery site, that is very common and it goes away eventually.
 
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blackoutcat

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Vet assessed the lump and told me that because of my cats size and relative amount of body fat there was some pulling involved to get the edges to meet for suturing so the lump is normal and should expect it to be gone within a few months.

The flakes she couldn't identify but she thouroughly cleaned the area with an alternative cleaning solution in case of allergies and gave us antibiotics as a precaution. If anything gets worse we're to go back before the normal check-up date but she feels we've taken the appropriate steps and will have no further complications.
 

red top rescue

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Good to hear.  Let's hope this clears it up.  I hope the cone is off too so she can groom herself.  It has been a week already and she should be safe to be licking her incision area.
 
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